If Valentine’s Day is a stressful exercise in having your failed existence shoved in your face for loser blockheads like Charlie Brown (as was so lovingly depicted in Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown), it’s positively apocalyptic for us beautiful people! This was never illustrated to better effect than in My Smurfy Valentine, which saw Smurfette desperately attempting to come to grips with the nightmarish reality of Valentine’s Day in her strange blue-hued world Continue reading “My Smurfy Valentine (1982)”
Category: 1980s
International Airport (1985)
I’m sure Airport resonated with the fossils who saw it when it first came out way back in 1970. Back in those days, you could slap Burt Lancaster’s name on a movie poster and people would pay to see just about anything, even a movie where he just drove back and forth from his office to different parts of airport!
In those more innocent/clueless days gone by, you could watch a sweaty nervous guy just bring a primitive bomb onto a plane and think “shoot, that could probably happen about six or seven times a week at any old airport!” There were probably even folks back then who actually owed some of star Dean Martin’s record albums! Continue reading “International Airport (1985)”
Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1986)
Spolier alert – Charlie Brown has a miserable New Year’s Eve. While it can be argued that it wasn’t all his fault since his teacher assigned his class to read War and Peace over the Christmas break, he was the only one the homework caused to have a days-long nervous breakdown. But what would the holidays be if there weren’t multiple stressors to push susceptible folks like Charlie Brown into a downward spiral of whiny self-loathing? Continue reading “Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1986)”
The Care Bears: Grams Bear’s Thanksgiving Surprise (1986)
Did you know Thanksgiving is even celebrated in far flung places like Carealot? The realm of the Care Bears turns out to be not much different than our own (except for the flying cars made out of clouds) as everyone is working hard to prepare for Grams Bear’s arrival. But like any first responder, the Care Bears are always on call, even on Thanksgiving! So it is that Share Bear heads to Earth to help a human brat figure out what he’s going to say in his big Thanksgiving speech to his home town! Continue reading “The Care Bears: Grams Bear’s Thanksgiving Surprise (1986)”
The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw (1980)
A refreshingly nasty take on Thanksgiving from an unlikely source. The Berenstain Bears, best known for the sensible and long suffering Mama Bear who is saddled with a clumsy and clueless Papa Bear and a pair of cubs who don’t have any personality beyond their clothing, the books frequently beat the reader over the head with some lesson about positive values like honesty, manners and eating healthy. This time it’s the importance of being thankful and sharing your bounty, but with a bit of a twist. Like some lame horror movie attempting to cash in on a holiday, there’s a monster coming to destroy all of Bear Country this Thanksgiving to fulfill a prophecy! Continue reading “The Berenstain Bears Meet Bigpaw (1980)”
Dorothy in the Land of Oz (1980)
If you can watch Dorothy in the Land of Oz and watch Dorothy carrying around a talking pie and not snicker, I don’t want to know you. This marginally Thanksgiving-related special leaves you wondering if someone dosed your stuffing with LSD right from the beginning when the Wizard of Oz himself appears to steal said pie from Auntie Em’s window sill! (This was before the pie was transported with Dorothy and Toto to Oz and achieved sentience through the accidental application of a special powder.) Continue reading “Dorothy in the Land of Oz (1980)”
The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (1980)
Researchers, scientists, scholars and people who have even half a brain have long since debunked the idea that there was a curse that killed people involved in excavating Tutankhamen’s tomb back in 1922. Heck, Howard Carter, the archeologist in charge of it all, lived until he was 64 years old and died of lymphoma in 1939! If Tut’s otherworldly powers couldn’t even touch the guy who personally punched a hole in his tomb, his mummy mojo is pretty weak. Continue reading “The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (1980)”